Roots...

I remember the time of my life when I grew passionate about music, I was in Intermediate second year and was preparing for entrance for engineering and I was staying in Subbu's house, he had this album 'Rudaali' - he used to listen everyday, I thought him crazy. I used to almost stay alone all day in that room except for going out to eat food. So I turned to Radio/Tape. And ofcorse, I didnt have many tapes to play though but Rudaali was one among them and was most played tape. I even now remember that music composed by Bhupen Hazarika. The song 'Dil Hoom Hoom Kare' by both Lata and Bhupen are simply great. Even today, listening to these songs brings back my memories afresh. Almost the same time, music from movie Bombay was released and I was listening to them and they were not great then. But then realised, it is music of a r Rehman which you will never like at the very first time. That the first real taste of a r Rehman's music. By that same time I was already great fan of some of his compositions for telugu movie Premikudu. Listening to music while/before going to sleep became a habit by then.

Then I joined Engg., in KITS Warangal. I had to share a room with Pramod Reddy, I saved some money every month to buy a stereo/cassette player. I remember I had been a great fan Amitabh (Ofcorse even today), so Kabhi Kabhie and Silsila were one of my first tapes I bought. I used to listen to the songs before I went to sleep. Main Pol Do Pal Ka Shayar is my favourite in that and ofcourse the title song is appreciated by everyone. Then it became habit of collecting all Amitabh old tapes. I used to buy/record the tapes and soon I had a great collection of my own. My friends used to enjoy all the collection and we also used to that Request-a-Song-and-dedicate-game. It was very much fun. By this time, I had the habit of listening to music/songs while I was reading.

I remember a funny anecdote in this regard. I used to share my room with Sangam and Kiran and after few months, they decided to move out and I was getting Pramod as my new roomie. One day, he requested me not to turn on the music while we are reading. I readily agreed for that. After few days, I managed to convince him that I will turn on the music with the minimum most audible volume he agreed for that. Guess what, after 4 years of staying with me, he now cant read until he has some source of music. Isnt that funny?

Our room was a constant place for my classmates to come and prepare for exam. So there used to be a good number of people at the time of exams. Pravin, Vishy, Sunil, Jp, Venu, Dinaker were few to name. And we had '24X7 guests' - Venku and Chinna, they were our neighbours. And all this time while reading we had some source of music. And there was this guy named M Pramodh Kumar, he used to get us some English music. He had some influence on my music tastes. Another man who influenced or had similar music taste were Balram and Ramana both from Mechanical engg., This is time I discovered some of the best Hindi and Telugu old and contemparary music. [EDIT] There was this man Sunil who had a great taste of some of the Hindi old movie songs. He introduced to me some of the good songs. So in brief, my music tastes' has been influenced/inspired by many people around. M Pramodh Kumar, 'M' used to stand for Mushti - was a misnomer though, he had always appreciated for what I was. And I borrowed many of his thinking styles and some other good stuff from this man. He is a great talker too.